Covo STL Plays Host to Drone Selfies at Oui Gallery Opening

The drone selfies are reminiscent of infinitely recurring mandelbrot style patterns - despite being the exact opposite of that - but I can't explain it, properly. Yet that is exactly the apex where art and technology collide.

Oui.Gallery, a new project from the brains behind St Louis’ Art Hack Day, have announced their first exhibition which will held at Covo STL this friday (March 2nd).

The exhibition entitled Order (2018) will focus on… wait for it.. drone selfies.

A geographer by schooling and a cartographer by trade, local art hacker Aaron Owens says, “Map makers now use drones to document the exact topology of a landscape through imagery. In my series, Order, I used a drone and open source software to more closely examine the overlap of people and the environment in areas around Saint Louis paying particular attention to those landscapes of consistent change such as the edge of the Mississippi River.”

It will be the local artist’s first art show where he will be displaying four selected large-scale aerial drone photographs depicting the interaction of people and nature in the Saint Louis region. Additionally, a longer form video piece by Owens will be unveiled at the opening reception at COVO Saint Louis from 6 to 8 PM on Friday, March 2.

A post shared by Oui.Gallery (@ouigallery) on Feb 24, 2018 at 9:26am PST

As you can see from the Instagram post, the drone selfies are reminiscent of infinitely recurring mandelbrot style patterns – despite being the organic forms being the exact opposite of mathematical visualizations.

True to form, it’s noteworthy that this exhibition promises to follow the art hacktivist philosophy of reclaiming symbols of the city’s past and holds true to the Art Hack Day organizers’ conviction that culture should replace technology in St Louis.

“This is a show of firsts,” said Redelle Lee, Co-Founder of Oui.Gallery. “This is artist Aaron Owens’s first art show. It is also Oui.Gallery’s first project and the first art show at the newly launched COVO co-working space in Saint Louis. It is also Oui.Gallery and COVO’s first collaboration. We are excited to set a monthly pace to introduce emerging artists to Saint Louis and the world.”

Jonathan Allen is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of EQ. He is also the President and Co-founder of Longneck & Thunderfoot (L&T), a brand publishing company incubated at the Columbia University Startup Lab in NYC. After winning an Arch Grant, he moved to St Louis in the summer of 2016.